


Lifepartners Will Rule The 'Verse

by FriendshipCastle



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Genre: Gen, Groot and Rocket being platonic lifepartners, Groot's understanding of gender is apathetic, my made-up backstory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 02:31:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2174790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendshipCastle/pseuds/FriendshipCastle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once again written for my bud Hiccup, who once again didn't have a say in this one though she did ask some key questions.</p>
<p>I haven't read any of the comics, probably never will.  I don't care about the canon.  This is in no way, shape, or form canon.  It's just how I dream of things being.</p>
<p>I almost want to call this done but I know what more I'd write about.  Just trust it won't be more than two chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lifepartners Will Rule The 'Verse

There was a crash. 

Considering the vastness of the cosmos, that’s basically the only way for people to meet. A slow crash together over a long period of time, maybe years. The fast crash of seeing someone smile and thinking, ‘Yep. That’s it. That’s what I want.’

This was a literal crash, into a planet of photosynthesizing lifeforms that wouldn’t be out of place in a Lord of the Rings movie. And what emerged from the crash, in the literal sense, was something that looked like a raccoon. In the figurative sense of intertwined destinies and such, it was a fucking weird-looking friendship.

 

\---------------------------------------

 

Groot had been a curious one as long as anyone could remember. The way that tree-child stared at things, the way Groot watched the skies… All of it spoke of a wonder that was deep and powerful and focused and insatiable. The rest of Groot’s ‘family’ (Copse-mates? The tree-child wasn’t part of a forest, that was for sure, but Groot wasn’t alone either) had formed the slow opinion that Groot was weird. Entirely too interested things that weren’t important. The tree-child had learned to _speak_ with a _mouth_ for fuck’s sake. No one needed to _speak_ with a _mouth_. They had limbs and leaves and pollen and roots and wind and a million other ways to communicate. Deliberate sound waves from an _orifice_ was just bizarre. Groot had even picked a name that could be spoken aloud, which was unheard of. Some people had names that could only be spoken at certain times of day, yet Groot had picked something could be said with a face-hole. It was uncanny. 

They tolerated Groot, though. The tree-child was too kind not to be tolerated, and Groot was fantastic in a fight, with that strange mixture of slow and fast thinking that was essential to a warrior of their people. So it was for Groot, the Weird Warrior, until the day of the crash, when Groot became nothing more than a cautionary tale for saplings until the Weird Warrior gradually faded from his planet’s memory.

 

\---------------------------------------

 

A small creature emerged from the wreckage. Groot watched it check all of its limbs (it did so very quickly), then it’s other limbs, which had perhaps broken off in the wreckage. Strange, shiny limbs they were, with a humming heat to them that was like the sun but not like it at all. Groot watched.

The creature staggered over and leaned against Groot. The heartbeat that pounded against Groot’s leg was fast. Groot’s own heart only beat about ten times a day, as sap migrated throughout all the limbs and leaves and flowers that had grown over time. This creature was entirely new. Its craft had fallen from the sky. Perhaps it was from space.

It spoke. Too quickly for Groot to follow, really. Groot wasn’t particularly skilled at understanding other languages yet. Some pirate off-planet radio came in to the planet’s trade hub every now and then (the only building on the planet, which housed mail systems and transmitted radio communications, and had only been installed eighty years ago), so Groot understood some terms. Actually, Groot understood more than could be expected. This creature had a translator of some kind.

“Fuck,” the creature said.

Groot did not know what that meant.

The creature slid down Groot’s leg and sat back, staring up into Groot’s foliage. It had a small, pointed face that had a very different texture and color than its body, which was orange and sleeker than even the smoothest tree bark.

It’s eyes were like Groot’s, though. Groot blinked at it, a slow slide of barklids over moist eyeballs.

The creature did not notice. “It’ll be okay,” it said, glancing back at the wreckage. “Forest planet, underground water sources, no major heat means no other life. Time to breathe. It’ll be okay. No fuckin’ way they’ll find me here. Rocket, you’re a motherfuckin’ genius.”

It pushed against Groot’s leg with a hand and stood. Groot blinked again when it moved its hand away. The steady buzz of the creature’s heartbeat had been strange but not unpleasant.

“I am Groot,” Groot said aloud, since this seemed to be how the creature communicated.

“Fuck!” The creature spun and stared around wildly. “Who the fuck—”

“I am Groot,” Groot said, and took a step forward, dropping to one knee so that the creature was closer to Groot’s level.

“Oh god oh jesus oh shit oh shit oh shit,” the creature said, backing away. “Uh. Hi, Groot, I’m Rocket and I’m definitely normal and stuff, got it?”

“I am Groot.”

The creature had picked up some of its limbs and one made a strange humming noise and turned reddish orange at the tip. Was it time for the creature to shed its leaves? Autumn already?

“All right! Back the fuck up, big guy,” the creature said. “I’ll toast your scaly ass if you don’t.”

“I am Groot.”

“Is that _all_ you can say?”

“I am Groot.”

The creature lowered its limbs slightly. “Seriously?”

“I am Groot.”

“Yeah, fine. You’re a one-trick pony. Nice to meet you, I’m Rocket and I’m leaving soon as I can get enough metal to repair this shitbucket of a ship. You have metal on this planet? Shiny, like this?” The creature—Rocket—waved its extra limb around. 

“I am Groot.” Groot stood and took a few steps away, then looked back. There was plenty of metal. People used it for radios and dishes and satellites but not much else. Wood was more useful for anything they may need. They didn’t need much, after all. The radio was a luxury introduced by some creatures larger and less soft-looking than Rocket, though they had similar torsos. None of Groot’s people were entirely sure how radio worked, but it was nice to hear fresh-sapling wishes come on, hoping for luck for a sprout on the other side of the planet. 

“Uh. Okay, I can follow you. Maybe you’re not as stupid as you look,” Rocket said. 

Groot stopped walking. The meaning of ‘stupid’ was unkind. Perhaps Groot would not help Rocket after all.

Rocket was looking up, though, and not at Groot. It’s mouth hung open. Groot looked up as well. There were strange moving lights, just as there had been before, when the creatures that were like Rocket but bigger had landed. 

“Oh no,” Rocket said, its voice like a quiet breeze through leaves. It was suddenly climbing up Groot, small feet hooking between Groot’s vines and branches. “Hide me,” Rocket hissed close to Groot’s face. “They can’t find me, man, they _can’t_.”

“I am Groot,” Groot said reassuringly. It took a moment of strain, of thinking of the small fast creature as the sun that Groot needed to grow towards, before Rocket was completely covered by branches. 

“Holy shit,” Groot heard Rocket say. “A man of hidden talents.”

Groot walked away from the wreckage as quickly as possible.

 

\---------------------------------------

 

Later, Groot sidled up to the edge of the camp that the landing party had established, a latticework of branches still covering most of Groot’s head and shoulders. 

 

\---------------------------------------

 

A ship went missing that night. It was found months later, abandoned in a parking lot planet. There was blood all over the grill. Old blood. And, wedged in the undercarriage, a skeleton of an arm held together with crumbling tendons.

 

\---------------------------------------

 

Groot learned that Rocket was male. This distinction between different categories of fast creatures was clarified when Rocket told Groot to “Grab her!” and Groot had grabbed an individual and Rocket had almost torn his own fur out as their real quarry got away.

“Do you not understand _genders_?” Rocket groaned.

Groot had shaken his head and raised his shoulders.

Rocket had sighed deeply. “I guess it makes sense. You’re a fuckin’ tree, after all. You don’t have any… yanno, bits. You can be a guy, though. Like me. You’re tall and damn can you kill shit, and that’s man enough for me.”

And Groot had nodded. If he was like Rocket, then he was also one who fought things and was curious to discover the world. Rocket was mostly concerned with finding out what specific buildings or spacecraft contained, but it was much the same. Groot wanted to be like Rocket. This meant they would be in the same copse. That was a nice thought. Rocket perhaps didn’t understand things in this way, but Groot would make him understand eventually.

“I’m a guy, you’re a guy, we’re both guys,” Rocket had said much later, after Rocket had given up on catching their bounty and they’d retired to a large room with many people and a long table where Rocket took very tiny drinks. He couldn’t seem to focus very well once he’d had a substantial number of those drinks. Rocket had acknowledged that they were both ‘guys,’ though, guys of a copse. He understood.

Groot sprouted a few leaves because he could and proceeded to blow on them. They flapped. It was lovely.

“We’re both guys,” Rocket yawned. “Beating the shit out of the galaxy and looking awesome while we do it.”

“I am Groot.”

“Guess you can be a girl if you want,” Rocket said. “But eh, gender expectations. They’d probably want you to wear a grass skirt or some flowers on your head or something. ‘They’ is society, by the way, just in case you’re trying to keep up. Got that?”

“I am Groot.”

Rocket snickered. “I have no goddamn idea how much of this gets through your bark, man. Like, no clue. You’re getting good at expressions, though, A plus on that. All those sign language videos paid off, didn’t they?”

Groot pulled the corners of his mouth up. 

Rocket slapped him on the knee. “Atta boy.”

Groot smiled wider.

 

\---------------------------------------

 

Groot was muscle. _The_ muscle, really. But Rocket also liked to be the muscle. He liked to say he was the muscle while standing in front of Groot and holding one of his metal things—Groot had once thought them branches, but they were ‘guns.’ 

Groot was learning so much about the fast creatures of the world, though it was taking a long, long time to figure out exactly what they meant when they talked to each other. Groot’s people had been mistaken. Communication using sounds from the face was only a small portion of what it meant to speak to others. The language of fast creatures was as physical as that of Groot’s society. It went so much more quickly, though! It was good that Groot never needed to sleep or else he would have grown exhausted trying to keep up with everything that the fast creatures were saying or not saying. Groot no longer bothered trying to figure out how to speak more than what he already knew. It was unnecessary. Watching other people was all that was important. 

Rocket spoke so much that it was easy to tune out language after a while. Groot had forced himself to listen to every word he could hear back when he was on his home planet, drinking the knowledge as if he were suffering a drought. Now, though, he had learned to turn off his hearing and watch. 

Some movements were threats. Groot could recognize those. He had fought many people on his home planet. The stances were the same. The voices were not. Sometimes, Groot ignored the voices and just watched the feet and the chests and the hands. He mimicked. He failed sometimes. He tried something different. Perhaps if he mastered the physical, he would not even need to speak. No one seemed to like it when he talked anyway. Rocket was indifferent.

Then again, Rocket was not normal. Groot learned this by watching and not listening. Rocket spoke like anyone else (for the most part). He was able to do many of the things other fast creatures could do. He was quite small and furred, though. What Groot had thought was orange skin was in fact something called ‘clothes,’ but under that Rocket was the same color as his face. Groot knew this because Rocket occasionally went out in public unclothed without causing much of a fuss, which other fast creatures could not do. This was only when he had spent too much time in ‘bars.’ Rocket liked bars.

At these times, Groot saw the strange pink skin of his back, a patch amidst the grey fur. There were chips of metal embedded in it. Rocket strongly objected if he caught anyone even looking at them. 

“What the fuck’re you starin’ at?” he snarled once when Groot was observing him change uniforms to infiltrate a bank vessel. It was unclear why Rocket thought that changing uniforms would disguise him, since he was still very small and furred, but perhaps Groot just needed to wait and all would be made clear.

Groot shook his head and raised his shoulders.

“Turn around. It’s weird to look at people when they’re outta their clothes. Got that?”

Groot faced the wall. Rocket didn’t care about being out of his clothes. He cared about people staring at him when he was out of his clothes. This would require further study.

Groot stepped around Rocket, who was trying to zip up the front of the far-too-baggy uniform without getting any of his fur caught in the zipper, and pulled the door to the bank space cruiser off of its hinges, crumpled it slightly, and forced it back through the frame. The fast creatures spurted red and made loud noises. They were dead, which always puzzled Groot. His own people were hard to kill. They died of old age and its associated diseases. Back when he was still a warrior for his copse, Groot had torn people apart and then waited a few sun cycles before doing it over again. This was not what happened with other creatures.

“Oh shit,” Rocket said. “Goddammit, Groot, what the fuck are you—you killed them too soon! How are we gonna find the pass code now? Did you even listen when I was telling you the plan?

“I am Groot.”

Rocket dragged his hands up and down his face, then sighed. “Okay, Mister I-Don’t-Give-A-Fuck, we’ll fucking improvise. You have any ideas? You sure as shit can’t tear into the cargo hold without the pass key or a blow torch or something—okay, wait, blow torch. I got this.” And then Rocket was sprinting around the back of the bank vessel, yelling back, “Bring my bag! The, the black one! With the doo-dads coming out! But make sure the doo-dads don’t actually come out! I need them!”

Groot scooped up the bag, prevented anything from falling out, and did as he was told.

 

\---------------------------------------

 

“Fulla surprises,” Rocket laughed. He had smoked some things (Groot was interested in fire because he was interested in everything, but he didn’t feel the need to get anywhere near it because he wasn’t interested in learning more about the sensation of pain) and now he was curled on top of Groot’s head. Rocket normally avoided climbing on Groot unless they were fighting something. His fast heartbeat was echoing in Groot’s head, making it difficult to think.

It was night. They were camping out, a ‘stakeout,’ but Rocket was fairly incapacitated now. Groot was releasing seeds to light the area. They did not contain any of his genetic material and would pollinate nothing, but they provided a wonderful glow that Rocket was currently enjoying. He swatted at them with his hand and kept laughing. Groot blew on a few, made them chase each other, forgot where he was. They were in something like a forest, one of the proper ones he was almost never invited to. The darkness made it easy to pretend that everyone was simply conserving energy, exchanging quiet gossip when a wind would pass. 

Groot began to tell a story. The one where he and Rocket had been attacked and then stolen their attackers’ ship while the boarding party was busy trying to find them in their own vessel. Groot liked this story. Perhaps the forest would like it, too.

“Yer gonna make me puke, dude,” Rocket groaned as Groot was getting to the good part. “Stop, Jesus Christ. Lemme get down if you’re gonna do that. Uh. Help me down?”

Groot lifted Rocket off of his head and set him down.

“I am Groot?” Groot said.

Rocket blinked at him. “Is this like a dance of your people or some shit?”

Groot decided to finish his story.

“Are you… was that me?” Rocket said once Groot had settled down. “Were you mocking me, fucker?”

Groot shook his head.

“Then what the fuck was that?”

“I am Groot.”

Rocket squinted. “You were telling a story.”

Groot normally would have nodded, but this was not a question. Asking questions had helped Groot realize that there was a strange cadence that signaled a question, along with the squinted eyes and furrowed brows and, perhaps, a cock of the head. The sign language videos really had been immensely helpful. Instead, Rocket was stating something he’d understood, so Groot merely stared back at him. After a while, this felt insufficient, so Groot smiled.

“I dunno what goes on in your head,” Rocket said quietly. “What’s going on up there, I swear. God. I’d give just about anything for a tree-to-freak translator.” He laughed but the laughing was very quiet and it faded away quickly and then Rocket was breathing strangely and sniffling.

Freak was a word Rocket did not like applied to him or to Groot. He was allowed to say it about himself (and he said it about others, too) but he attacked anyone who called either of them a freak. Groot had induced that being called a freak was much worse than being called a fucking asshole, which just made Rocket laugh and which Rocket called other people all the time. 

Groot decided to frown at Rocket now because Rocket was calling himself a freak. “I am Groot.”

Rocket glared back at him. His eyes shone in the light of Groot’s seed pods as he wiped his nose. “I’m not fuckin’ cryin’, man, don’t talk shit. You don’t even know what crying is. I’m making up your half of the dialogue because you’re a fucking _tree_ , oh shit, my best friend’s a tree.”

Groot didn’t know this word. “I am Groot?”

“I don’t know what you’re really saying, man,” Rocket said. His voice was jerky and he was leaking from the eyes. “I’ve been pretending I do but I have no fuckin’ clue, I just don’t. I’m sorry. I don’t speak your language and I dunno if you speak mine or you just followed me home like a, like a _pet_ or something and now I gotta take care of you when I don’t even know how to— No one never took care of me, got it?” He was no longer speaking in a jerky way. This was his angry voice. Groot was unsure if it was directed at himself or at someone else, but no one was here. Groot glanced around just in case. The trees would probably have informed him if someone was coming. They had liked his story about Rocket.

Rocket staggered over and shoved Groot in the ankle. “You hear me, ya dick? No one took care of me! I can’t take care of you! Fuck you! Don’t follow me no more, got it? If you can understand that, say your fuckin’ catchphrase!”

Groot was concerned. He squatted down and tried to look at Rocket’s face because this often clarified matters. Rocket was pacing, though. This made getting a look at him more difficult. Groot really wanted to know what Rocket was thinking right now. Why was he so angry? He reached out and placed a twig on Rocket’s shoulder to stop him moving. Rocket paused and looked at him.

Groot detected anger. This gave way to some sort of slump-shouldered resignation. Groot had failed in some way. He had not been fast enough to understand. He had not said his ‘catchphrase,’ whatever that was. Groot attempted to look apologetic. The expression was very close to anger (it was the brows), so he was very careful with this. He patted Rocket’s shoulder. It seemed the right thing to do.

Rocket reached up and gently moved his twig away. “Okay, fine, man. I get it. You don’t wanna leave.”

This was true. Groot smiled and nodded. Then his arm blew off.

“Oh shit!” Rocket yelled. He darted for his gun, calling over his shoulder, “They fucking found me, oh _fuck_! Groot, book it! Let’s go!” 

“I am Groot,” Groot said. They ran for it. Groot tried not to mourn the loss of his arm. It had been a lovely growth. He’d had it even longer than he’d known Rocket, which had been a while (Groot’s sense of time was off because he could no longer measure his home planet’s sun cycles, but he was aware that he and Rocket had been together for several hundred sun rotations at least).

“It’s gonna be okay!” Rocket screamed at him. “I am so, so sorry dude, I’m so sorry, don’t die on me, don’t—“

Groot leaned down, picked Rocket up with his remaining arm, and continued running. Rocket could move his limbs faster but Groot’s legs were much longer, and since they were crashing around anyway, it didn’t matter how much noise they made.

“What the fuck?” Rocket was tapping at Groot’s shoulder, the one without an arm attached. He sat back and held on to the branches around Groot’s head. “Shit. I’m an idiot. You’re a goddamn tree. You can regrow limbs. Ohhhh my god I’m so stupid.”

“I am Groot,” Groot said.

“Listen, just get us away, okay? Like, stop and freeze and be a tree and hide me, got it?”

Groot nodded. He stopped and grew.

 

\---------------------------------------

 

“Okay, how are you gonna— Oh, you can shrink back down. Okay, that’s pretty cool. Uh. Kinda slow process but dang. Wish I’d been paying attention to what planet you were from. Hm. Um. You think our bounty’s still here or should we just go decamoflage the ship and just call this a bust?”

“I am Groot.”

“Guess you’re right.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I think Groot's people and the Ents would have a lot to talk about.
> 
> Just wanna point out that Groot doesn't start using gendered pronouns to refer to himself until Rocket explicitly tells him what gendered pronouns are. There may be typos in that but I really tried. It was _hard_ and I am proud of that. 
> 
> Groot's perspective in general is hard to write. Really interesting and fun though, writing an ignorant-yet-interested perspective on the world.
> 
> Sign language uses a lot of expressions to communicate more clearly, so I feel like Groot would have watched a lot in order to understand more about body language and facial expression.
> 
> The title's something entirely self-indulgent but I kept seeing shit on tumblr about how asexuals would be able to rule the world because they're not consumed with getting laid and I'm thinking that's where Rocket and Groot could be if Rocket wasn't such a fuckup and Groot wasn't so apathetic. The tree's interested in everything in my opinion, he just doesn't care to affect change in his favor.


End file.
